Fire and Ice
by subtract
Summary: When police discover the body of a six-year-old girl in Rosewood, Idaho and another little girl immediately vanishes, the BAU is called in to unravel the unsub's bizarre funeral rituals before it is too late to save another child's life.
1. No Rest for the Weary

**Fire and Ice**

 _Some say the world will end in fire,_

 _Some say in ice._

 _From what I've tasted of desire_

 _I hold with those who favor fire._

 _But if it had to perish twice,_

 _I think I know enough of hate_

 _To say that for destruction ice_

 _Is also great_

 _And would suffice._

 _\- Robert Frost_

CHAPTER ONE - No Rest for the Weary

Emily slapped a manilla folder full of completed paperwork on top of the barely organized pile of papers that balanced precariously in the corner of her desk. The team had just returned from a particularly draining case in Delaware that involved the deaths of several local politicians, so between fielding constant media attention and trying to catch a killer with an M.O. that spanned from blunt force trauma to drowning, it was safe to say that everyone in the BAU was ready to hunker down and pass out for twelve hours of sleep, minimum. As satisfying as it was to finally catch the serial killer and put him behind bars, the whole process of profiling and tracking a murderer for a week straight took an emotional and physical toll on everyone involved.

The noise of a pen clattering to the floor made Emily drag her tired eyes away from yet another post-case form she had to complete before turning in for the night. On the other side of her desk, Morgan had propped his head up on one hand while writing with the other. He seemed physically incapable of keeping his eyes open for one more minute. His pen had fallen from his hand mid-sentence and he hadn't even noticed.

Emily wheeled her chair around her desk and reached out to shake Morgan's shoulder gently. As soon as her hand touched him, he inhaled sharply and jolted awake.

"Hey there, sleeping beauty," Emily said with a smile. "Are you done with all your paperwork yet?"

Morgan blinked tiredly, then squinted down at the myriad of papers spread across his desk. "I can't even read this."

"I think you fell asleep mid-sentence." Emily took the paper out of his hand and tried to make out the writing. Morgan's normally neat handwriting had devolved into a jagged scrawl that was almost completely unlegible. "Yeah, I think you're going to have to redo this."

"It's not _that_ bad… " Morgan said as he peered over the other papers he had just filled out.

"Something tells me Strauss isn't going to appreciate trying to translate your cuneiform tomorrow morning."

To her left, Reid, who had been uncharacteristically quiet for the past half hour, seemed unable to stop the stream of information that began pouring out of his mouth. "Actually, cuneiform began as a written language that was similar to other pictographic languages before it was simplified down to marks that could be easily made with a wedge-shaped stylus and clay. Words were written with distinct vertical and horizontal lines, so I don't think Chief Strauss will confuse Morgan's handwriting for cuneiform…"

"Shh, I know, Reid, Emily was just making a snarky joke," Morgan sighed.

"Oh."

"It's okay Reid, we're all tired and not fully functioning," Emily said. Her eyes felt so gritty and heavy that it was all she could do to keep them open. She tried to remember when the last time she got a full night's sleep was, but the effort to do so just made her feel even more exhausted and slightly nauseous, so she filed away the thought to worry about later and tried to focus on the papers she still had to fill out.

A muttered "uh oh" from Reid made her glance to her left again. "What's wrong?"

Reid gestured towards Hotch's office with his chin. "JJ just went in there holding a stack of folders. She looked worried."

The blinds in Hotch's office were open, so Emily could see JJ's anxious expression as she opened one of the folders and started handing what appeared to be crime scene photos to Hotch. She couldn't hear what JJ was saying, but it was clear from Hotch's deep frown that something serious had come up. Hotch and JJ spoke for a few more minutes, and in that time both of their faces seemed to become even more drawn. When they both emerged, it wasn't surprising that Hotch told them to meet in the conference room in ten minutes.

JJ came down the stairs and began passing out the folders she was holding with an extremely apologetic look on her face. "I'm sorry, guys, I know we're all beyond tired after Delaware, but this case isn't going to wait."

"Are you sure it can't wait even six hours for us all to take a nap?" Morgan asked half-heartedly. He opened his folder and sighed deeply when he saw the crime scene photos.

Emily frowned and opened up her own folder to glance over the case before moving to the conference room. Her stomach lurched unpleasantly when she saw the photos laying on top of a stack of papers. It appeared to be the body of a small girl, maybe six or seven years old, lying on the frost-covered ground of a forest while clutching a small bouquet of wildflowers. The scene would have been peaceful except for the dark bruising around the girl's neck and the open wound in the middle of her chest that was partially covered by her hands and the flowers. The girl's legs were placed completely in line with her torso, and her hands were folded across her chest so that the bouquet lined up neatly beneath her chin. The photo had a surprisingly low resolution compared to the crime scene pictures they usually received, so there wasn't much else Emily could decipher after one quick glance.

With a heavy sigh, Emily closed the folder and pushed her chair away from the desk. Reid seemed have already read the entire report, judging by the way he was gnawing on his bottom lip, and Morgan was still taking a long look at the photo of the dead girl's body. As they left for the conference room, Emily felt as though a fist had grabbed her heart and squeezed. Usually she prided herself on her ability to compartmentalize her emotions and not let them get in the way of doing her job, but cases involving children were always a struggle for her, not to mention when she was exhausted and desperately needed sleep.

Hotch, JJ, and Rossi were already waiting in the conference room. JJ had the photo of the girl's body and several closeups of the bruises and torso wound projected onto the screen while Hotch and Rossi were sitting at the table with the folders open in front of them.

"Okay JJ, let's get started," Hotch said when the others were seated.

JJ clicked her pointer at the screen, and the picture of the body zoomed in to fill the screen. "This is the body of six-year-old Becca Cooper, found this morning in a forest in Rosewood, Idaho. Becca was reported missing three days ago, and the police were looking into it as a kidnapping case before two hikers found her body while they were looking for berries off the trail they were hiking. The wound in her chest is a gunshot wound. The police believe she was shot with some type of handgun, but they're still waiting on the ballistics report to confirm the type of gun. The bruising around her neck is also indicative of manual strangulation, especially since you can see finger-shaped bruises. The coroner is working to confirm the cause of death, but judging by how damaged her chest is, the police believe that Becca bled to death within minutes of being shot."

"Something's up with her wrists too," Morgan said. "I couldn't make it out on the photo, but on the screen you can see the markings more clearly."

"The Rosewood police think that those might be restraint markings. She was physically restrained at some point by handcuffs or manacles."

"What's up with the flowers and the way she's positioned? It almost seems ritualistic, which might have something to do with why she was strangled and shot," Emily said.

Reid chimed in. "The flowers that she's holding are called sego lilies. They're a common type of wildflower in Idaho, especially up in the panhandle where Rosewood is. The unsub could have picked them there, or he could have brought them from his house or shelter." He paused to clear his throat. "Lilies are the most common flower associated with funeral services as well. They symbolize the innocence that has been restored to the dead person's soul. Almost any kind of white lily is meant to express purity."

"The way her body is positioned is also reminiscent of a body in a coffin," Hotch said quietly. "The unsub could feel remorse for killing Becca, and this is his way of symbolically burying her. Frost will have frozen the ground in Idaho at this point in December, so he couldn't dig deep enough into the ground to physically bury the body."

Emily shook her head in disbelief. "He feels remorse after kidnapping, restraining, strangling, and then shooting a six-year-old girl? That's a huge shift in his mentality."

"There's another thing I don't like about this. Why weren't we called in sooner? Usually the police let us know about a kidnapping within hours," Rossi said with a frown.

JJ hesitated. "Rosewood has a population of 2,083. The police force there is three middle-aged men who have never dealt with anything like this before. They weren't sure of the protocol before it was too late." She clicked another button, and a new girl's face flashed onto the screen. "This is Sadie Green. She was reported missing about three hours ago."

The team members stared at the little girl's school picture while their tired minds worked to process this new information. Sadie looked very similar to Becca Cooper, from her long blonde hair to the freckles speckling her rosy cheeks. Even their round noses seemed identical. The two of them easily could have passed as sisters.

"Sadie Green's parents work on a cattle ranch, like most people in Rosewood. Sadie went outside to get the dog inside the house before dark, and she must have been taken as soon as she was alone because she never came back inside according to her parents."

A heavy silence hung over the team.

"If the same unsub that killed Becca took Sadie and he continues on his schedule, we have two and a half days before Sadie is dead," Hotch finally said. He slid the photos and the papers back inside the folder in front of him. "I know that we just finished a difficult case and that we're all tired, but time is of the essence here if we want to get Sadie home to her parents safely. If we leave now we'll get to Idaho in four hours, and then we can sleep at a hotel before heading to the police station in the morning to get started."

"You got it, boss," Emily said drowsily, but she tried to put on her game face to mask how tired she really felt.

"I know this is a lot of work, but remember that a little girl's life is at stake here. We can all sleep on the plane. Wheels up in thirty."

* * *

 _The full moon shone brightly in the cold winter sky, lighting the earth below as though it was sunlight. The night sky was completely clear, and the cold sharpened the sight of the stars twinkling above. Far away, a wolf howled. The sound cut through the crisp air like a knife._

 _The man slammed the truck door shut and hopped to the ground. The crunching gravel of the road beneath his feet seemed impossibly loud as he pulled himself up into the bed of the truck. The old vehicle seemed to groan as it was jostled underneath his weight, but it had lasted so long that one more grievance wouldn't cause it to break down just yet._

 _In a corner of the truck bed, pressed close to the fleeting warmth that the heater inside the truck provided, was the miserable creature he'd snatched to replace the old one. The thing was shivering violently and seemed to be trying to use her own hair as a blanket against the freezing air. The man scowled at her, then picked her up by one arm and dragged her out of the truck bed and to the ground. He was sure she would have screamed if the wad of cloth in her mouth wasn't in the way._

 _Even though he growled at her to come quietly, the damn thing wouldn't quit struggling, so the man cuffed her sharply on the back of the head. She became very still and wouldn't stand when he told her to. He huffed in frustration, then slung her over one shoulder and carried her inside._

 _At least she wasn't making so much noise anymore._


	2. First Meetings

CHAPTER TWO - First Meetings

Almost immediately after the jet took off, everyone but JJ and Hotch gave in to exhaustion and fell asleep. Hotch would have gladly done the same, but he still had some questions for JJ, who was sitting in one of the corner seats with a dim overhead light brightening the open case files and the tablet she was working on.

Hotch slid into the seat opposite JJ and waited for her to look up from the illuminated display of the tablet.

"I just booked us three rooms at the Sunrise Inn. I'm sorry we can't all get our own rooms, but it's the only hotel in Rosewood and it only has four rooms, total," JJ said. "On the plus side, there's free breakfast at 7 every day, so at least we won't starve."

"That's alright, JJ. I'm impressed you were able to find anything on such short notice."

JJ sighed. "I wouldn't have found anything if the town hadn't just created a website for tourists. Rosewood is so small that there's really not much of… anything there."

"I was going to ask you about that. You mentioned earlier that there were only three police officers that oversee the entire town. Do you know anything about how they will react to an FBI presence? There's usually some resistance to federal assistance in these small towns."

"I think that if we weren't coming in under such extreme circumstances, we could expect some resistance but these guys really seem to be in over their heads." JJ pulled out one of the low quality crime scene photos from her case file and grimaced at it. "I'm pretty sure this was taken with a camera phone."

A patch of turbulence jostled the plane, which made Rossi grunt loudly in his sleep.

Hotch took the photo from JJ and turned it over in his hands. "So we're working with slightly reluctant officers with little to no up to date technology. We should have brought Garcia and her arsenal with us."

"After that last case? She didn't wait at the office for five minutes before getting to her car and going home, like a sane person."

"Fair enough." Hotch quirked his lip appreciatively. "Do you know anything else about where we're going?"

JJ raised an eyebrow. "From personal experience living in a small town? Everyone is going to want to know everything about each other's business. Most people will have some connection to the victim, her family, and probably the unsub and his family too. Everyone will have gone to the same school and will shop at the same places and have virtually the same lives. We're going to have our work cut out for us sorting out significant connections between these people."

Hotch could already feel the migraine he was going to have once this whole case was over starting to form behind his eyes.

"Great. Anything else?"

"Well, there's another town about an hour away called Hayden Lake that's a little bigger than Rosewood, but not by much. Its population is… "

She pulled up her tabled again and tapped a few keys.

"...6,452. Both towns are small enough that there's still probably a lot of crossover between residents. We'll probably have to cross reference both towns during the investigation. It also looks like the medical examiner's office is located there, so some of us are going to end up visiting no matter what."

Thinking about the amount of data they were definitely going to have to meticulously trudge through in the next couple of days made Hotch very aware of how little rest the team was operating on and how bone tired he really was at the moment. He noted the dark circles under JJ's eyes that she usually tried to conceal and decided that the rest of his questions about the town could wait until the next morning. He thanked JJ and told her to get some sleep before the plane touched down. The liaison nodded and seemed to instantly pass out without even turning her tablet off or putting her folders away. Hotch powered down the tablet and turned off the light above her, then moved to find his own place to snatch a few hours of sleep.

* * *

It felt like she had barely drifted off to sleep when Emily woke to Hotch gently shaking her shoulder.

"...We there yet?" she slurred.

"Sort of. The plane landed, but the closest airport is still a two hour drive from Rosewood."

Emily tried to process that new bit of information. "So we're… _not_ there yet?"

"Sorry, but no."

She managed to grunt in response and tried to rub the sleep from her eyes. When her blurred vision finally focused into a clear image, she could see Hotch and Morgan moving around the plane getting everyone up and moving. With a yawn, she stood and pulled her go bag out of the overhead compartment. She then followed Reid, who stumbled over his own tired, uncoordinated feet at least twice, off the plane and onto the tarmac where two government issued SUVs were waiting for the team.

When the entire team, in various stages of consciousness, was assembled together, JJ told them that she'd managed to get them three hotel rooms in Rosewood, so they were going to have to share with each other while they were there.

"Aaron and I are together, this is not up for debate," Rossi said the instant Morgan and Reid opened their mouths. "I've done my time with both of you and it is not an experience I'm keen to repeat."

Emily was privately very glad that she and JJ got along just fine when it came to sharing a room.

After Rossi firmly decided on the rooming situation, he and Hotch got into one SUV while Reid and Morgan took the other. She and JJ glanced at each other, and simultaneously decided to slide into the backseat of Hotch and Rossi's car. Emily had nothing against Morgan's driving skills, but past midnight in a new area she felt just a little more confidence in Hotch's ability to get them to the hotel without passing out behind the wheel.

The drive through the northern Idaho countryside was beautiful, even at night when the only light came from the moon up above. The sky was scarcely so clear in Washington DC, what with all the light pollution, so Emily watched the bright stars visible above the treeline for as long as she could, before the motion of the car put her back to sleep again.

Emily blinked awake again an hour and a half later, once they pulled up into Rosewood's "downtown" area. JJ had fallen asleep against her shoulder and seemed content to stay there as long as possible. She could hear Rossi and Hotch up front arguing quietly over the directions to get to the Sunrise Inn where they were staying. Outside the SUV's tinted windows, she could see a few small stores, a gas station, a diner, and a small path that could be a dirt road off to the right.

"Is that the turn you're looking for?" Emily said as she leaned forward. She smirked when Hotch immediately turned right onto the path she spotted and Rossi folded his arms with a huff.

The Sunrise Inn turned out to be an old farm house that the owner converted into a Bed and Breakfast three years ago. It was run by a very kind man in his early sixties named Bill, who helped each agent carry their luggage to their rooms as soon as they finally arrived around 4 in the morning.

Hotch informed everyone to meet in the lobby at 8:30 the next morning so they could all head to the police station together. Emily could barely keep her eyes open when she nodded to confirm she knew when to get up. Her nap on the plane and in the car had helped alleviate some of her exhaustion, but the prickly feeling stinging her eyes continued to remind her that she still needed more sleep if she was going to be any use to the team at all the next day.

Emily barely took in the cozy decor of the hotel room before she set the alarm on her phone and fell back asleep on top of the bed closest to the door.

* * *

8:00 came earlier than Emily would have liked, but the glare of the bright morning sunlight streaming through the curtains forced her to get out of bed to avoid being blinded.

JJ stepped out of the bathroom and tossed the towel she was using to dry her hair at Emily. "Well, look who's finally awake," she joked.

"Hilarious," Emily groaned. "How can I sleep so much and still be so tired?"

JJ shrugged. "A miracle of science?"

Emily threw the towel back at JJ, who smirked and moved aside so Emily could get into the shower before they headed downstairs for breakfast and to regroup with the rest of the team.

In the hotel lobby, the men of the team were already seated around a round table finishing their breakfast when Emily and JJ came downstairs, case files in hand.

"You get all your beauty sleep in, Prentiss?" Morgan asked jokingly.

"It takes me a little longer to dry my hair than you," Emily answered with a significant look at his bald head.

"Prentiss, JJ, if you want to grab something to eat, put it in a bag so we can take it with us. The Rosewood police are expecting us at 8:45 and I'm not sure how long it's going to take us to find the station," Hotch said with a glance at his watch.

Emily thought that there wouldn't be any harm in showing up just a little bit late, but she didn't want to put Hotch in a bad mood before they even got started, so she and JJ grabbed cups of coffee and bagels before getting in the SUV. Finding the police station proved to be just as frustrating as Hotch had predicted. The precinct was so small that they missed it twice before JJ noticed it next to the Rosewood high school. There was only one parking place left beside the two police cruisers, so Morgan ended up parking in the grass behind the building.

As the team got out of their cars, an older man with receding white hair, a bushy mustache, thick circular glasses, and a police uniform came out to meet them.

"Officer Olson?" JJ asked with her hand outstretched. "I'm Jennifer Jareau, we spoke on the phone last night. These are Agents Hotchner, Prentiss, Rossi, Morgan, and Reid. Everyone, this is Robert Olson, he's the police chief in Rosewood."

Olson shook JJ's hand and nodded politely at everyone else. "Pleasure to meet you, but I wish it was under better circumstances. Please, come inside." He held open the door for the six FBI agents to enter the small police station.

A quick glance around the police station instantly told Emily they were going to have their work cut out for them in Rosewood. The station was cluttered and very, very cramped. Just by standing in the first room the team already took up most of the building's floor space. There was one small holding cell off to the side, and a few filing cabinets with papers stacked on top and around them. Two more police officers were sitting behind desks working on ancient computers. When the team walked inside, they both looked up from their work to examine the newcomers.

"Davis, Neal, these are the FBI agents who came to help us with the Becca Cooper case," Olson said, glancing at the six agents crowded in the doorway. "Agents, this is Sam Davis and Jason Neal, the rest of Rosewood's force."

Sam Davis and Jason Neal were both middle aged white men, and neither seemed to be in very good physical shape. Davis had a drooping nose and a flabby face that appeared to blend directly into his short neck. His chestnut hair, parted down the middle, looked like a bird had landed on his head with its wings outstretched to cover his ears. Neal had a prominent round chin and black bristles of hair that looked like a toothbrush erupting from the top of his head. Both of them seemed relieved to see the BAU agents had made it, judging by how their tired eyes brightened when they walked in. Emily thought they both looked like nice enough people, but it really seemed to her that no one in Rosewood was even remotely prepared to conduct a full murder and abduction investigation.

"Good morning," Hotch said in a polite tone when Davis and Neal stood up to shake his hand. He turned to Olson. "Do you have a conference room and an evidence board where we can set up? We'd like to get started as soon as possible."

"A conference room is just about all we _do_ have here in Rosewood," Olson said as he led them to a small room behind a closed door.

"That's all we need. Thank you for your help, Officer Olson," Hotch said, then closed the door behind him.

Emily sighed and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. The conference room, just like everything else in the precinct, was small enough that she was practically sitting elbow-to-elbow with Reid. It was probably a fire hazard to have so many people in such a confined area. "Let's get started before we overheat," she suggested as she shrugged out of her coat.

"We can work with victimology first," Rossi said. "Becca and Sadie are similar enough that they could be related. That could be a coincidence, but they're both so alike that I'd say the unsub definitely has a type."

Emily pulled out the photos of Becca Cooper's body and compared them to the photo of Sadie they'd been given. Blonde hair in braids, blue eyes, freckles, six years old. They were definitely too similar if the unsub was taking girls at random. "What do you think is his motivation behind taking these specific girls?" She hesitated. "I assume we're thinking the unsub is a he."

"Was there any evidence of sexual assault?" Morgan asked.

JJ shook her head. "The report from the medical examiner hasn't come in yet. The technology around here is… a bit antiquated."

"Either way, these girls are pretty young, even for a pedophile. Almost all child victims of sexual assault are between seven and thirteen, but Becca and Sadie are both just barely six years old," Reid said.

"It's too early to rule out a sexual motivation, but there could be other reasons these girls were taken as well," Hotch said. "They could be surrogates for someone the unsub knew. The manner in which the body was found as well as the flowers on her chest suggest that the unsub wanted to bury her."

Rossi shook his head. "Yeah, but surrogates usually stand in for someone the unsub resents. Why would someone harbor that much hatred against six year old girls with blonde hair?"

" That's what we're here to find out. In either case, whether the unsub is motivated by a sexual urge or by a desire for revenge, there's a very high likelyhood he has some connection to the victims." Hotch closed his folder and stood up. "Morgan, Prentiss, you go to the scene where they found Becca's body. Rossi and I will go talk to Becca and Sadie's parents, and Reid, I'd like you to stay here and start looking for some connection between Becca, Sadie, and anyone who might have committed crimes against children in this area before. We'll meet back here around 1:00 to go over what we've found."

* * *

" _Please!" the girl whined in the corner of the drafty room. "Let me go! I want my mommy!" She trembled as the man loomed over her and snapped thick manacles around her tiny wrists._

" _I already told you, your mommy isn't coming," the man growled. The sunlight coming through the windows was making him irritable. The thin curtains he had hung didn't seem to do anything to block the light from streaming into the room. He scowled down at the shaking girl. "I have to go take care of some business. If I come back and see that you've moved from that spot, even an inch, I will be very, very angry."_

 _The girl stared at him with wide eyes. "Please, it's cold and I didn't grab my jacket… "_

 _The man kicked her in the side, and she collapsed with a high-pitched whine. "Did I say you could talk, you bitch?" he hissed._

 _With an angry frown, the man stormed out of the room and slammed the door behind him._

 **A/N: Thank you for the reviews!**


	3. Cold Trails

CHAPTER THREE - Cold Trails

Emily hadn't realized how cold it truly was until Morgan parked the SUV in the middle of the woods where the road ended. The temperature seemed to have dropped by ten degrees from the time she got into the car to when she stepped outside. She shivered and clenched her coat tighter around herself when a sharp gust of freezing wind blew through the trees.

"Isn't it supposed to get warmer as the sun goes up?" she asked.

Officer Olson, who had been sitting in the back seat giving Morgan instructions to the dump site, climbed out of the car and zipped his coat up to his neck. "Idaho winters get fierce fast," he said with an air of experience. He frowned up at the sky, which was crystal clear in the cold atmosphere. "If there isn't a blizzard later today, then there'll be one tonight."

"A blizzard…? There's not a cloud in the sky, Olson," Morgan said. His quirked eyebrow gave away his skepticism.

"Trust me, Agent, an old man like me can feel these sorts of things in his bones," Olson said gravely.

Emily caught Morgan's eye and shrugged slightly. They had both dealt with crazier 'premonitions' in the past, and quite honestly, Emily was much less concerned with Olson's bones as she was with going over their dump site with a fine toothed comb. The previous night was a sort of blur, given how completely exhausted she was, but the shining mid-morning sunlight filtering in between the fir tree branches gave her a sharp reminder that a very young girl had already died because of slow investigators and another girl's clock was ticking steadily onward.

"Well, if it snows on the way back, we'll let you drive us back to the precinct, Olson," Emily said with a forced smile. "Going over the crime scene is more important than the weather right now." They had wasted enough time getting up to speed with this investigation already.

Olson directed the two agents down a dirt trail that traveled away from the main road. "This is the Joseph B. Hayden Trail, runs about sixteen miles in between Rosewood and Hayden Lake. All sorts of hikers come up during the summer season when the scenery's the best, especially around the lake at the other end of the trail." He paused a moment and frowned. "Not many folks come up in December."

Emily could sense why. Even though the evergreen trees that surrounded them were beautiful, the cold wind biting through her coat would probably dissuade all but the most dedicated hikers. As they walked, she tried to pull the fabric closer around her and wished she had remembered to pack a hat and gloves.

After a while, Morgan crouched down and pressed his fingers into the dirt of the trail. "The ground has been consistently well packed, considering it's the down season for tourists. This place must still get a fair amount of foot traffic."

"Like I said, the trail connects Hayden Lake and Rosewood. It's roundabout, but plenty of people know some shortcuts through the woods to get in between the two towns."

"So there's a fair amount of crossover between Rosewood citizens and Hayden Lake citizens?" Emily asked.

"Almost everybody has some connection or another to the other town."

Mentally, Emily groaned to herself. Their pool of possible suspects had just doubled, at least. The chances of finding Sadie alive shrank every minute.

Olson gestured towards an area off the main path. "Here's one of those shortcuts I mentioned. We found Becca's body yesterday this way."

Morgan and Emily followed Olson off the trail. Even though they were walking off the dirt path, the area was relatively clear and could have easily been a part of the designated trail. Emily took note that the ground was less packed down, so there were significantly less people that used the shortcut than those who stuck to the main path. After walking for about twenty minutes, Olson directed them to a clearing fifty feet away from the shortcut. A large Douglas fir had fallen and taken down a few other trees with it, so a small area was clear of any large plants. It was the only place where sunlight streamed directly down onto the patches of grass covering the ground. During the summer, Emily supposed there would have been more wildflowers growing, but the freezing weather had sent them all into hibernation.

There were still yellow evidence markers scattered around the area, although the strong wind seemed to have tipped a few of them over or blown them away all together. Emily cringed a bit at the slightly less than professional set-up as she pushed some of the markers back into place next to indentations in the grass that showed where Becca's body had laid.

"This place is almost a mile away from the main trail, but it's clearly visible from the shortcut," Morgan said. "Either the unsub didn't know about the shortcut and didn't think anyone would find the body for a long time, or he only meant for someone taking the shortcut to find it."

"I would say he meant for someone to find the body, based on the effort he went to to make the body look ready for burial," Emily said. She pulled on a pair of latex gloves and examined the fairly extensive blood stains on the grass. "And judging by the blood and bruises on Becca's body, I'm saying the unsub is a he. This degree of overkill isn't consistent with most female kidnappers."

Morgan nodded in agreement, and kicked at the ground a bit. His foot glanced off the frozen ground. "Prentiss, this ground is way too cold for flowers to grow. There's no way the unsub just picked some nearby for the bouquet he left with Becca."

"I was just thinking the same thing. He must have been planning this whole thing a _long_ time in advance if he held on to summer flowers all the way until now."

"Or he's growing them himself somewhere. Maybe he has a greenhouse?"

Emily pulled her gloves off and stood up. "Somehow greenhouses and serial killers don't seem to go together in my mind, but you never know with some people, I guess."

Morgan didn't respond. He squinted at something in the distance.

Emily waved a hand in front of his face. "Um, earth to Derek? What are you looking at?"

"Look at that tree trunk over there." Morgan pointed at a pine tree about seven feet away from the clearing. "There's a chunk of wood missing that almost looks like… someone shot the tree?"

Emily raised an eyebrow. She tried to remember if any of the crime scene photos had included a tree with bullet markings. "I thought the report said that Becca was just dumped here? That's what we all assumed, anyway, when they didn't find a physical bullet."

"Shit, Prentiss, look… there's tissue spray in the bark," Morgan said as he ran his fingers in the groove in the wood and they came away red. "That was definitely _not_ in the report."

"That's because we didn't spot what you did, Agent Morgan," Olson said with a note of alarm in his voice.

Emily whipped around in surprise. She had forgotten that Olson was still there with them while she and Morgan analyzed the crime scene. Inwardly, she cursed at the realization that she still wasn't completely on top of her game and that she was endangering Sadie's life by paying less than one hundred percent attention to her surroundings. "Officer, an omitted detail like this could influence our profile incorrectly, and we really don't have time to be wrong with Sadie's life at stake."

"I'm sorry Agent Prentiss, but we don't deal with many murder cases out here in Rosewood. You can't blame us for missing one little detail." Olson seemed offended that she was insinuating that the Rosewood officers couldn't do their job properly.

Stuffing her hands into her pockets to hide the fact that she was clenching her fists at the thought that Olson's inattention to the details in his report could have cost them hours in their hunt for Becca and Sadie's kidnapper, Emily was almost relieved when Morgan shouted for her attention.

"Prentiss, I've got a bullet casing over here!"

"Excuse me, Olson, I have to call this in right now," Emily said. It was a struggle to keep her irritation out of her voice.

Olson didn't even try to hide his aggravated huff. "You won't get a signal until we get back to the road."

She shoved her phone back into her pocket when it beeped to tell her Olson was unfortunately correct about the lack of a signal that far off the trail. "Then I guess we'd better get back as soon as possible, huh?"

When Morgan returned with the bullet in a plastic evidence bag, she turned away to roll her eyes, though she wasn't sure if it was directed at the Rosewood police for missing an obvious clue or at herself for not acting professionally when Sadie Green's life depended on her keeping a level head.

 _Damn my lack of sleep and this stupid Idaho winter,_ she thought and pulled her coat closer.

* * *

"Okay, Reid, just try your best with what you have. We'll help you out once we get back." Hotch ended the call and put his phone down with more force than was strictly necessary.

"You know you're not supposed to talk on the phone while you're driving," Rossi said. He didn't even look up from the paper map of Rosewood and the surrounding area that was open on his lap.

Hotch would have smiled if his conversation with Reid hadn't been as discouraging. "Apparently the files we saw stacked up in the station haven't been organized for a couple of decades, at least."

Rossi raised an eyebrow. "Is that an exact number?"

"If it wasn't Reid who said so, I would say it's an exaggeration, but he likes to give exact statistics… in case you hadn't noticed."

Rossi snorted appreciatively. "So it's going to be slower going than our resident genius would like?"

"Geniuses, plural. He and Garcia are teaming up to go through every aspect of Sadie and Becca's lives that could have possibly connected them." Hotch flinched when he realized he'd accidentally referred to Sadie in the past tense. Even though the unsub's pattern indicated that he kept the girls for three days at a time, the first twenty four hours were still critically important in every kidnapping investigation. And because the Rosewood police hadn't invited them in until a few hours after the second girl went missing, they were extremely far behind where he wanted to be in their investigation.

Up ahead, the road veered sharply to the right towards the modestly sized home where Elizabeth Cooper, Becca's mother, lived. Hotch slowed down as the asphalt transitioned to gravel underneath the SUV's tires and he parked in front of the house. Even from outside, a dark cloud seemed to hover over the Cooper home, as though the surrounding area could tell that a terrible tragedy had occurred.

Hotch ran his fingers through his hair to push it away from his forehead. This was arguably the worst part of working in the BAU. It never got easier to talk to parents about their dead children, and Mrs. Cooper was almost certainly going to be completely overwhelmed by grief. After losing Haley and almost Jack, he always felt a sympathetic pang somewhere deep in his gut whenever he had to talk to a bereaved parent.

A brief nudge to his arm shifted his focus back to the present.

"Hey, Aaron, you doing okay?" Rossi asked.

Hotch shook himself mentally for letting himself get distracted. "Yeah Dave, I'm fine." He continued before Rossi could interrupt him, as his expression clearly showed he wanted to. "Let's get this interview over with, we have a lot of work to do still."

The chilly temperature outside caught him by surprise, which he tried not to show physically. He did, however, zip his winter coat up a little higher before Rossi got out of the SUV. The winter wind made the pine needles on the surrounding trees rattle ominously when Hotch rang the doorbell.

After a few moments, a slight woman with short blonde hair and hazel eyes cracked the door open an inch. Hotch tried not to blink when he realized how closely she resembled Haley.

"Who are you?" she asked. Her voice was thick and stuffy. From what Hotch could make out through the small space in the doorway, her eyes were swollen and rimmed with red and purple. She was trying to hide a crumpled kleenex in one palm.

"Elizabeth Cooper, I'm Agent Hotchner, and this is Agent Rossi from the Behavioral Analysis Unit of the FBI," Hotch said gently. "We're here to ask you some questions about your daughter Becca."

Elizabeth sniffed and didn't open the door any further. "I already spoke to the police. Please, just leave me alone."

Rossi put a hand on the doorframe and leaned in closer. "Mrs. Cooper, we understand that you're dealing with a terrible situation right now, but another girl has gone missing just like Becca did, and we need your help to find her and bring her back to her parents."

"It's Ms. Cooper, not Mrs. My husband and I divorced a year ago." Elizabeth seemed to hover indecisively for a moment, before she sighed and opened the door fully to let the agents inside. She led them into a small sitting room with a couch and a plush chair facing each other. All the windows' blinds were closed, which made it slightly difficult to see inside the house.

Elizabeth sank down into the chair and pulled a box of tissues out from behind a cushion. Rossi and Hotch shared a significant glance before settling down on the couch next to each other. For a moment, Hotch considered opening the windows to get at least a little natural light in the room, but decided against it when he realized Elizabeth probably didn't want more people to see her at her lowest point than necessary.

"We're very sorry for your loss, Ms. Cooper," Rossi started, but Elizabeth stopped him almost instantly.

"Don't. Please." She blew her nose into the tissue clenched in her hand. "You don't even know who I am, or who Becca… was."

"Ms. Cooper, we understand that this is an awful time for you," Hotch said. "Please know that we're only here to help."

Elizabeth didn't respond.

Rossi sighed and settled forward with his elbows on his knees. "Ms. Cooper - "

"They told me they found her wearing a dress in the forest."

Rossi blinked. "Yes, that's true. Is that significant to you?"

"Becca hated dresses. She couldn't stand wearing them. She only had two: one pink, one blue. I made her wear them to church every Sunday, and she would just alternate them every other week. Both of those dresses are upstairs in her closet right now. I checked."

When Elizabeth paused to blow her nose again, Hotch understood what she was implying.

"Ms. Cooper, the medical report hasn't shown any evidence of sexual assault."

Elizabeth laughed into her kleenex. It was a mirthless sound that resembled a sob more than any expression of happiness. "It doesn't matter. It's a fact that the monster who murdered my baby had to undress her to get her into that dress. He saw her naked before he killed her." She stared at the agents, her eyes shimmering with angry tears. "If I knew who he was, I swear to god, I'd kill him myself with my bare hands."

Hotch did his best not to shift uncomfortably and swiftly changed the course of the interview. "What can you tell us about how Becca was abducted?"

"Isn't that your job to figure out?"

"Ms. Cooper, work with us here," Rossi said. "We want to get this guy as badly as you do, and we need all the information you can give us to do that."

"I doubt that anyone wants to find him more than me," Elizabeth said, but she leaned back into her chair and let some of the angry tension relax from her shoulders. "Becca was playing in the garden in the front of the house on Tuesday. My ex-husband Isaac set up a tire swing on one of the branches before he moved to Hayden Lake last fall. I remember stepping out onto the porch and seeing her spinning around on the swing and calling out for her to come inside to wash up before dinner." She paused to swipe at the eyeliner that was smudged underneath her eyes. "She begged for just a little bit more play time…"

Rossi handed her another tissue. Elizabeth dropped the used one on the floor amid a small pile and wiped her nose clear.

"I had a pie in the oven and soup on the stove, so I went back inside to check on it and left her alone. It couldn't have been for more than ten minutes… when I looked at the swing through the window, she was gone. I ran outside and searched for her for an hour. I was screaming her name for so long… I called the police and told them what happened, but I didn't hear anything back until they found h-her body yesterday… "

A sob burst out of her chest, and Hotch and Rossi gave her a minute to collect herself before pushing her again for more details.

"Did you notice anything different around your house before Becca was taken? A strange car, or someone who spent too much time in the area?" Hotch asked.

"No, no, nothing like that. Everything was completely normal until Becca disappeared. And besides, Becca is… was a very shy kid. She didn't talk to strangers, ever, and she would have told me if anyone was spending too much time around her or the house. S-she was very smart and noticed everything that other people did. But she, well, she didn't like to talk to many people besides me, especially after her father left."

"So what you're saying is," Rossi said slowly, "Becca wouldn't have gotten in a car with a stranger, or someone she knew."

"That's right. She knew that I would always be there to take her places."

Hotch frowned deeply, making his forehead crease sharply. Becca was sounding like the least likely child to have been abducted and murdered, although that obviously wasn't the case. Becca was a very high risk target, given her personality and her protective single mother, which meant that their unsub was almost definitely a previous offender.

"One more question, Ms. Cooper, and then we're done," Hotch said. "Can you think of any enemies you or your husband might have? Anyone who might carry a grudge that would motivate them to attack your family?"

Elizabeth looked at him incredulously. "In a town this size, there aren't enough people around for anyone to have any serious enemies."

"There's no one you can think of?"

"Agent Hotchner, until Tuesday I would have sworn that no one in Rosewood was capable of doing this sort of thing to anyone, much less my little girl. Now I believe anyone could have done it." Elizabeth folded her arms tightly across her chest and averted her eyes away from the two agents in her home.

"And what about her father, Isaac Cooper? Is it possible for him to have done this?"

Elizabeth's eyes widened. It was obvious that she hadn't even considered Isaac until Hotch had mentioned him. "Isaac… Isaac may be a cheating, lying bastard, but he wouldn't do this. Not to our baby."

Hotch nodded, but filed away Isaac Cooper in his mind as a potential suspect.

When it became clear that Elizabeth was finished talking by the way she pulled her legs up into the chair and curled into a ball, Hotch and Rossi stood together and thanked her for her cooperation. Elizabeth didn't make any move to respond, and indeed seemed to be in a different place mentally by the way her eyes had glazed over with tears, so they showed themselves out the door and back into the SUV.

Rossi climbed into the passenger seat and slammed the door closed while Hotch started up the engine and backed out of the driveway and onto the main road. "You still think it's the father even though Elizabeth says it's not, don't you?"

"It makes the most sense. If Becca was a reserved child who only spoke to and trusted her parents, then she obviously would get into a car with her father. She also probably wouldn't tell her mother about seeing Isaac's car, especially if she recognized it."

"Isaac wouldn't have registered as a threat to her," Rossi said as he nodded in agreement. He unfolded the paper map he was using to navigate and pointed to an intersection up ahead. "Turn left up there."

It took about twenty minutes to reach the Green's house. "The two families live relatively close to each other, considering we're in rural northern Idaho," Rossi said after Hotch parked the car. "Maybe we can get Reid to do some of that geographic profiling he loves so much."

"I bet he would appreciate getting away from organizing all those files for a little bit. I'll let you tell him the good news when we get back to the station," Hotch said while he knocked on the front door. When no one answered, Hotch knocked and waited again. Two minutes later, he looked at Rossi with frustration. "You might get to tell Reid sooner rather than later if no one's home."

After waiting for five minutes, they gave up and returned to the SUV. The inhospitable winter chill made waiting on the front porch for any longer nearly unbearable.

"I'll call ahead and tell JJ we're finished for now… or maybe not. There's no service right here, or anywhere on these damn backroads," Rossi grumbled once they were on the road headed back to the Rosewood precinct.

"Since we're coming back a bit early, we can probably start outlining the beginnings of the profile before Morgan and Prentiss come back from the crime scene," Hotch said.

However, that plan quickly failed once they walked into the precinct. Reid and the two police officers, Davis and Neil, were seated in the corner across the table from a heavy set, red headed woman who was openly weeping while trying to splutter out some story. JJ grabbed Hotch and pulled him aside, looking significantly more frazzled than usual.

"Hotch, I just got a call from the Hayden Lake police. They found Isaac Cooper's body in a different spot along the same trail where they found Becca, but he was covered in second and third degree burns and was shot through the stomach," JJ whispered quickly.

Hotch raised his eyebrows in alarm. "What?"

JJ shushed him quickly. "That woman over there is Sadie Green's mother, Catherine Green."

"And?"

"She just came in a half hour ago to report her husband Eric Green as missing."

* * *

 _The girl startled awake when a loud thump shook her out of her dreams. The man had returned and dropped a small empty kerosene tank on the wooden floor._

" _Don't make a sound," the man growled when the girl began to whimper. He had listened to enough whimpering in the past day to make him feel sick. Too much sniveling, not enough apologies._

 _He knelt next to the girl and yanked her chained hands into the air. She very obviously swallowed her noise of distress._

 _The man thrust a red crayon and a piece of paper into her hands. "Draw a family," he instructed. "Don't ask questions. Just do it."_

 _With a shaky nod, the girl took the crayon and carefully began to draw red lines on the paper. After a few minutes, the man snatched the paper back and held it close to his eyes to study it._

" _No...no, no, no!" the man growled. "This is_ wrong!"

" _I wasn't finished yet - " the girl tried to say, but the man shoved her back against the wall with an angry shout. He grabbed her braid and forced her to look at her drawing._

" _Where's the brother?_ Where is he?" _the man screamed._

 **A/N: Again, thank you so much for the reviews.**


	4. Complications

CHAPTER FOUR - Complications

For a split second, Hotch blanked completely on what to say. The unsub in his mind had rapidly evolved from a kidnapper to a possible family annihilator. He immediately discarded the beginnings of a profile he had started forming for the unsub after interviewing Elizabeth Cooper. Now they were dealing with a completely different kind of monster.

"Here's a list of the coordinates where they found Isaac's body… Hotch?" JJ asked, searching his face for some sort of reaction. "What do you need?"

"You and Dave get Neal and Davis away from Mrs. Green and set her up somewhere where we can talk to her alone. They're smothering her and we won't get anything useful from her if they scare her too badly," Hotch said. "I'll call Prentiss and Morgan and redirect them to the new crime scene."

JJ nodded and moved to start talking to Mrs. Green.

Reid emerged from the office where he had set up the evidence board and had been pouring over the paper files he had decided were relevant to the case. "Hotch, there's something I think you should - "

"Has JJ told you what happened?" Hotch interrupted. He was sure what Reid wanted to say was important, but he had to deal with the immediate development first before he could devote any time to Reid's theory.

Reid nodded. He looked a little put out at being interrupted.

"I need you to get started on a geographical profile for this unsub, especially now that we have three crime scenes and two dump sites."

The expression on Reid's face clearly showed that he would rather start sharing whatever new theory he was exploring, but something in Hotch's harsher than usual tone must have tipped him off that it was not the time to be arguing because he hurried back into the office without comment for once.

Once Reid was taken care of, Hotch pulled his phone out of his pocket and speed dialed Morgan. When the call finally went through, the connection was so poor he could barely make out Morgan's voice on the other end.

" _Yeah Hotch… 's up?"_

"Isaac Cooper's body was just found about three quarters of a mile away from the first crime scene, and now Sadie's father is missing. I need you and Prentiss to go check it out." He rattled off the coordinates that JJ had just given him.

If Morgan responded, Hotch couldn't make it out before the phone signal gave out and the call disconnected. He quickly masked his frustration at the terrible reception in the isolated Idaho town and slipped the phone back into his pocket. If Morgan hadn't understood him or heard the coordinates, they might waste another hour while he and Prentiss drove back to the station, and unfortunately their case had suddenly become significantly more time sensitive.

A badly muffled sob called his attention back to the crying woman sitting on a small lumpy couch in the corner of the station. JJ was seated next to her, rubbing her back soothingly and murmuring some comforting words. Rossi had directed the two police officers away from Catherine and was asking them about how their files on Rosewood's citizens were organized.

Hotch grabbed a chair from the unoccupied desk and pulled it up next to the distraught mother.

"Mrs. Green, my name is SSA Aaron Hotchner. I'm the agent in charge of the investigation into your daughter's disappearance."

As soon as he mentioned Sadie, Catherine seemed to choke on her next sob. JJ handed her a tissue from a box positioned next to the couch on the ground. "First my Sadie, and now… and now this…!"

She blew her nose forcefully.

"And what exactly is 'this', Mrs. Green?" Hotch asked.

"Eric - he was supposed to meet me for lunch at Ellie's. When he d-didn't show up at noon like he said he would, I thought that he might still be at work on the Richardson's farm. I called him… I called him twice and he didn't pick up. Sometimes he doesn't get a signal out there, so I didn't think anything was wrong… oh god!" She bend forward and grabbed her knees like she might faint.

Hotch and JJ reacted immediately and reached forward to catch her. From the other side of the station, Rossi, Davis, and Neal turned away from the teetering piles of files they were pouring over. Hotch gestured at Rossi that everything was okay while JJ helped Catherine collect herself.

"Are you alright?"

Catherine sniffed and rubbed her fingers underneath her eyes to wipe away the smeared mascara staining her skin. "I'm… I'm sorry, it just hit me that I might never see my little girl or my husband ever again."

"We are doing everything in our power to make sure that's not the case," Hotch said. He shushed the little voice in his head that told him the chances of finding both Sadie and Eric alive were shrinking every minute.

JJ made eye contact with him. It was clear that she was thinking the same thing but was trying not to give anything away.

"But what about that other family? That poor girl _died_ , she was _shot to death_ …"

"Mrs. Green, don't think about that right now," JJ interrupted.

Hotch nodded in agreement. "For now, focus on what you can tell us about Sadie's and Eric's disappearances."

Catherine stiffened and seemed to try to get her trembling bottom lip under control. "Well, like I said, I thought Eric was just late or his phone wasn't working, so I decided to go back home. Once I got there, though, I saw… I saw… " She blew her nose again as more tears welled up in her eyes.

JJ took Catherine's hand gently. "What did you see, Mrs. Green?"

"The door had been forced open. There were splinters where the lock was broken. A-and on the porch, someone had left a photo o-of Sadie, but she was chained up in a dark room. There w-was blood in her hair, and she looked so… so scared!" She broke off with a wail and fell forward into JJ's waiting arms.

Hotch's steely expression masked the warning bells going off in his head. Breaking and entering was a large departure from the unsub's previous M.O., as well as the photo being left on the porch. He had a sick hunch that the entire case had just escalated in severity very quickly.

"Was there anything unusual in the house?" Hotch asked the weepy woman.

"No," Catherine gasped out. "I came here as soon as I realized that Eric wasn't at home, and his truck was s-still in the driveway."

Hotch nodded. "You did the right thing by coming to us right away, Catherine," he tried to say gently, without betraying the sinking feeling in his gut.

Catherine didn't seem to notice his words, she was so far gone in her own grief. Hotch turned around and gestured for Rossi to come back over.

He fished around in his pockets for the keys to the SUV. "JJ, why don't you and Dave take Mrs. Green back home. Bring a camera and some evidence bags to take a look at the scene and the photo, but I have a feeling you won't find much. Once Morgan and Prentiss make it back, we can actually start putting this whole thing together."

JJ took the keys from his outstretched hand and nodded quietly, all the while keeping a firm grip around Catherine's quivering shoulders.

* * *

Reid was on the brink of physically slamming his head down onto the table out of frustration. The Rosewood police force had the worst filing "system" he had ever had the misfortune of encountering. It had actually taken him several minutes to decipher the complex arrangement, and he was quite literally an expert on decoding cryptic messages, to the point that he was faster than the average computer in some cases. Officer Olson had designed the organization style, and it was clear that he was the only one that truly understood it. Files were stacked in teetering piles on top of cabinets and stuffed messily inside in what seemed like a random pattern. Eventually Reid figured out that files were grouped together first by type of infraction, and then alphabetically by the victim's father's last name, and then placed in piles depending on what decade they were originally filed in, even if follow up investigations had occurred recently.

The stacks of paper spread all across the table contained every scrap of information Reid had found that related to the Cooper and Green families in any way, shape, or form imaginable. It had taken him the entire morning to comb through the incredibly messy drawers and the folders on the ground to find every mention of any member of the Cooper's and Green's immediate and extended families in the past two and a half decades. Reid grudgingly admitted that, even if Olson's organization style was bizarre, no one could accuse him of not being thorough. Every violation of the law for the past seventy years was accounted for, and the decades preceding that were relatively well-documented as well.

" _Wonderboy? You still there?"_

Reid shook his head to clear away his intrusive thoughts. "Yeah, Garcia, let's go over everything we've found so far one more time."

On the other end of the line, Garcia groaned loudly. " _So are we going with 'third thousand time's the charm' then?"_

"Actually it's only been seven times, and theoretically each time should feel shorter since your brain has already had time to process the main information once. New details should stand out to us clearly."

" _Yeah. Theoretically being the key word in that sentence."_

"Garcia… "

A deep, put-upon sigh came from the phone. " _Okay, my mildly fanatical friend, let's do this one more time. The Cooper family has lived in Rosewood for-freaking-ever, like since the town was founded in 1906 forever. Josiah Cooper and his family were some of the original settlers, and they've lived on the same cattle farm basically since then, judging by the first tax records I can find. I'm pretty sure the eldest son inherited it whenever someone died? Yeah, from what I can tell from these wills I found, the farm was passed from Josiah to his son Josiah Jr., and then to his son Samuel and finally to Isaac Cooper."_

Reid shuffled around the top layer of folders that contained more recent information to get to the older papers underneath. "There's a couple of charges filed against one of Samuel's brothers back in the seventies. Public indecency, loitering, that sort of thing."

" _Is there even anything to do in Rosewood besides standing around naked for fun?"_

Reid snorted, but pressed on. "And further back, Josiah Jr. was accused of letting his cattle graze on his neighbor's land, which might have caused some tension between the two families for a while."

" _Like… enough tension to murder a six year old girl sixty years later?"_ Garcia's frown was almost audible from Virginia.

Reid automatically shook his head. "No, it looks like Josiah paid the neighbor a fine for damages and trespassing."

" _Rosewood seriously fined cows for trespassing in the fifties?"_

"Apparently. And that's about all I've found out so far about the Cooper family that might provoke an unsub, unless someone is really angry about a speeding ticket Isaac got in 2003." Reid closed up the folders he had opened and carefully stacked them in a neat pile on the left side of the table that he mentally labeled the "done" pile. "Okay, on to Elizabeth Cooper's side of the family."

" _Okey dokey, Elizabeth Cooper's maiden name is Groves, and she definitely has a more raunchy history than her husband and his family that has been in the cattle ranch business for literally a hundred years. So, her family showed up in Rosewood about ten years after the Coopers when her great-great grandfather Duane build some little cabin near Hayden Lake where he, his wife, and their_ seven children _lived. They lived like fifteenish miles away from the main town, which probably would have been less of a problem if Duane hadn't been a carpenter who had to trek that whole way carrying chairs or whatever to sell. I guess business wasn't very good, even after he built his house, because I can't find any mention of him anywhere after September in 1927 when his last advertisement ran in the newspaper."_

"I've got a rap sheet for Duane's son William," Reid interjected. "Record keeping back then was spotty at best, but even so, people took notice when someone was locked up for assaulting other people in drunken rages in the middle of town multiple times."

" _I'm guessing William was bad for business because the family moved away after that. There's no more record of them in Idaho after that. I found a house that they moved to in Utah, and I guess the next generation really turned it around because there's no more records of unprovoked violent attacks. Elizabeth's grandparents and her parents seem like real saints. They volunteered in the community, taught Sunday School classes. They even worked as foster parents for a while before they died."_

"And we didn't find anything about the kids they fostered?"

" _There's zip, mi amigo. Everyone seems pretty well adjusted."_

Reid sighed. He knew, of course, that there wouldn't be anything. He and Garcia had gone over Elizabeth and Isaac's life stories multiple times now, and nothing seemed to suggest that anyone would want to kill Becca and Isaac Cooper.

"So after that, Elizabeth moved back to Rosewood and married Isaac?"

Garcia's nails clicked on the keyboard as she pulled up screens on her computers back in Quantico. " _Yeeeeep… I don't see any employment records before she marries Isaac and gives birth to Becca."_

"There has to be a reason why Elizabeth is still alive while her husband and daughter were kidnapped and murdered."

" _I know, boy genius, but so far she looks pretty normal even if her family's roots in Rosewood are a little sketch. Maybe there's some info on the Greens that can help us. They're a really new family by Rosewood standards and I'm getting someone from Montana where they used to live to send me some of the juicier gossip as soon as they get the chance."_

"Okay, okay."

" _So that's about it I guess from my end. There basically isn't any significant connection between the families historically speaking, for now. I'll let you know if any of that new info sprouts up cool similarities between them as soon as it shows up."_

"...Alright, thanks Garcia."

" _Any time, mon cheri. Penelope_ out."

Reid pressed the end call button and settled back into his chair. The new silence in the room almost seemed oppressive in the tiny, enclosed space that felt more like a closet than an office. He swiveled around to stare at the crime scene photos tacked onto the board and the fistful of white flowers clutched in Becca Cooper's cold hands.

An incredibly annoying feeling told him that he was missing something glaringly obvious about this case. He just couldn't figure out what.

* * *

 _A cold draft of wind that snuck underneath the ancient wooden door made the paper on the floor rustle gently. If the man had still been in the house, he might have instinctively grabbed it to stop it from being blown up against window._

 _If anyone had passed by at that moment, they would have seen a child's red crayon drawing of a family peering out into the forest, though it wasn't a family one would normally picture. The father and the daughter's faces had been completely scribbled out. The mother's circular head had a deep frown instead of a smile. There was no brother in the picture._

 _No one knew about the empty cabin there in the freezing woods by the lake. No one saw Sadie Green's picture._


End file.
